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Two student members of the Entomological Society of Canada have videos entered in the NSERC-CRSNG Science, Action! competition. The contest, open to students across Canada, aims to share NSERC-CRSNG funded research through 60 second videos, and offers a cash prize of $3,000 to the winning entries. The first round of public voting is now open, and both students would appreciate your support by viewing and sharing their entries, helping highlight entomology research in Canada.

Michael Hrabar, MSc Student at Simon Fraser University

Bed bugs have become a global epidemic. Detecting infestations early is the key to successful eradication. Scientists at Simon Fraser University have identified the bed bug aggregation pheromone. They extracted the pheromone from the bugs’ feces and cast cuticle, and analyzed extracts by state-of-the-art technology including gas chromatography-mass spectrometry and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. In lab and field bioassays, they demonstrated that a 6-component pheromone blend is highly effective in attracting bed bugs to, and retaining them in, cardboard shelter traps. The pheromone technology can now be developed as a tool to help detect, and possibly control, bed bug infestations.

https://youtu.be/xRsh-hInyR0

Morgan Jackson*, PhD Candidate at the University of Guelph

Flies, two-winged insects in the order Diptera, are an important and understudied component of Canada’s biodiversity. With nearly 8,000 species known from Canada, and likely as many more still to be discovered, flies impact our lives every day, either as pests and disease vectors, or as pollinators, decomposers and in many other ways. At the University of Guelph Insect Collection, we’re working to understand the diversity of flies from coast to coast and beyond our borders by studying their natural history and taxonomy using comparative morphology and DNA. By combining fieldwork with museum-based research, we’re helping catalog Canada’s dipteran diversity.

We had a great response to last week’s photo, so thank you to everyone who played along. We’ve got an all new photo for you to caption today, but first we need you to vote for your favourite Photo 1 caption.

Copyright for the photo remains with the photographer, use must be granted for ESO promotional material. Winning photos will be displayed on the ESO website, and all entries will be displayed at the 149th Annual General Meeting of the ESO.

Interested in meeting other entomologists and learning more about Ontario insects? Join ESO! It’s free for students and amateurs, and only $30 for others. Get more information at http://www.entsocont.ca.

Rules:
1. Photos must be of insects or closely-related arthropods (e.g. mites, spiders).
2. Submissions must be as digital files
3. Photographic enhancement is allowed as long as it is something that could be achieved in a real darkroom (i.e. adjustment of contrast, color enhancement, cropping, etc.). However very obvious enhancements will be negatively scored.
4. You may submit up to 3 unique images per category.
5. Submit photos as 7.5 x 10 inches in size at 300 dpi (2250 x 3000 pixels), in .jpg format, with filename as title_lastname_firstinitial.jpg (e.g. dragonfly_smith_j.jpg).
6. Photos may be landscape or portrait in orientation.
7. Print photos must be scanned and submitted as digital files.

Please include a short description of your photo:
1. Where they were taken
2. Why you like them
3. What insect is pictured
4. What category is being entered
5. Your complete address

Are you a shutterbug? In love with your macro lens? Show off your favourites at the prestigious 8th Annual ESC Photo Contest! The submission deadline is July 31, so get your latest photos in soon. You too could win prestige, honour, and the admiration of your friends and peers. Top winners will grace the covers of The Canadian Entomologist and the ESC Bulletin for all 2013 issues. A selection of all submissions will be displayed on the Photo Contest website.

Contest rules are posted below:

• Photos of insects and other arthropods in all stages, activities, and habitats are accepted. To represent the scope of entomological research, we also encourage photos of field plots, laboratory experiments, insect impacts, research activities, sampling equipment, etc. Photos should, however, have a clear entomological focus.

• Digital images must be submitted in unbordered, high-quality JPG format, with the long side (width or height) a minimum of 1500 pixels. Entrants may submit up to five photographs. A caption must be provided with each photo submitted; photos without captions will not be accepted. Captions should include the locality, subject identification as closely as is known, description of activity if the main subject is other than an insect, and any interesting or relevant information. Captions should be a maximum of 40 words.

• The entrant must be a member in good standing of the Entomological Society of Canada. Photos must be taken by the entrant, and the entrant must own the copyright.

• The copyright of the photo remains with the entrant, but royalty-free use must be granted to the ESC for inclusion on the cover of one volume (6 issues) of The Canadian Entomologist, one volume (4 issues) of the Bulletin, and on the ESC website.

• The judging committee will be chosen by the Chair of the Publications Committee of the ESC and will include a member of the Web Content Committee.

• The Photo Contest winners will be announced on the ESC website, and may be announced at the Annual Meeting of the ESC or in the Bulletin. Winning photographs, and a selection of all entries, will be exhibited on the website.

• There is no cash award for the winners, but photographers will be acknowledged in each issue the photos are printed.

• Submission deadline is 31 July 2012. Entries should be submitted as an attachment to an email message; the subject line should start with « ESC Photo Contest Submission ». Send the email message to: photocontest@esc-sec.ca.

Scientists are taught to remain objective about their study organisms and not anthropomorphize behaviours or biology. Sure, this might be useful for preventing bias in results, but it can suck the fun right out of day to day work!

Here’s your chance to act less like a scientist and have some fun with the insect world. Every 2 weeks we’ll post a new photo of an insect (or other arthropod), and your mission, should you choose to accept it, will be to come up with a witty/funny/clever caption.

Although being given the chance to showcase your witticism and comedic chops for everyone on the internet to see should be award enough, we know people really like prizes, so here’s how it’s going to work:

Take a look at the photo and submit your best caption ideas in the comments (Please keep your captions PG-13. If this is your first time leaving a comment on this blog it will need to be approved by an ESC Admin before showing up. Once we’ve recognized you’re not spam and approved your comment, all your subsequent comments will be visible immediately after posting. Any captions or comments judged by the ESC admins to be derogatory, denigrating, or discriminatory will result in you being banned from commenting further effective immediately)

Crystal & I will select up to 5 of our favourite captions for each week’s photo

You’ll then get the chance to vote for your favourite nominated caption

The authors of the Top 3 voted captions will score points (5 points for first, 3 points for second, 1 point for third)

After 8 photos (4 months) we’ll tally the points and award some yet-to-be-determined prizes (don’t worry, we’ll make sure they’re awesome and entomological) to the caption-creators with the highest accumulated scores!

Think of it as American Idol meets The New Yorker, but with more insects and less Simon Cowell.

Also, if you took an insect photo which you think is just begging to be captioned, send it in to us and we’ll be happy to use it in the contest.

$150 will be awarded to the winner for each category and the “Alive with mites” winner may be offered the opportunity to be a cover illustration for the International Journal of Acarology.

So far the judges include John Acorn, David Walter and myself, and we are looking forward to a wealth of submissions from all the many entomologists, amateur or professional, that will be attending JAM 2012.

Nothing to submit? There is a whole season of delicious bug photography still ahead!

The closing date for submissions is October 30, so get your macro lens on and get cracking! We are looking forward to a biodiverse flood of entries!